


Staircase To Heaven

by Teenyttt



Series: Little Opuses [2]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Death, Male OC - Freeform, Oneshot, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 03:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17459618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teenyttt/pseuds/Teenyttt
Summary: A young man goes back to visit his hometown one last time.





	Staircase To Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly longer oneshot than usual. This was something I scribbled down on paper during an extremely boring GP lecture, lol. I am an exemplar student. Enjoy! :)

Wheels caked in mud and substance rolled down the trail.

 

They stopped abruptly at the entrance to the desolate town, poised before the two rotting posts. The banner high above had flaked away but still proclaimed ‘Welcome to the Town of Canaan’. A young man cloaked in a neat black trench coat revealed himself from the tinted windows of his Porsche.

 

He gave a great shiver as the chill of the air threatened to creep through the layers of clothes wrapped around him. He thinks he should have brought hand warmers. He rubbed his hands together, warming them with his breath as penetrating jade eyes scanned his surroundings.

 

There was nobody around. Only rows of decrepit houses extending from the entrance to the horizon greeted him. If he squinted, he could just about make out the old Town Hall that loomed in the distant darkness like a faraway castle; the kind Gran-gran always told him about when he was but a blubbering toddler, the ones that kept an awaiting princess and a dragon guard. Gran-gran always reassured him he would be the heroic Prince, and he would go on adventures and have the time of his life. As much as he had loved the tales Gran-gran spun, he wished that she had told him of other stories as well. Ones where the Prince had failed, and the Princess ended up dead, and the dragon and monsters and all sorts of other nasty beasties ravaged the Prince’s hometown and left everyone for dead except the Prince who drowned himself in delirium and alcohol. Maybe if she did, he would have been prepared for what was coming. Then maybe even so, he would have not.

 

The young man raked his fingers through his tousled brown hair. Old memories always stirred him up, no matter how long ago they had been. He took a tentative step forward, emerald eyes still flicking left and right. Caution shrouded his stance but there was a warmth and comfort hinted in the soft countenance of his face. It was such an achingly familiar place that he longed to embrace. But you could never be too careful. You never knew where the monsties and uglies could leap out from and that’ll be the end of you.

 

The man walked down the uneven dirt road, vision soaking in the age-old establishments that sat squashed side-by-side, wooden structures rotting down, tin roofs rusting from nature’s breath.

Some houses had caved in under the immense accumulated pressure over time. Others were barely holding up but their shutters were drawn, curtains closed and uninviting.

 

He took a shuddering breath as he came across an overgrown cemetery and halted his footsteps. The stone heads jutted out of the wild grass, the graves adorned with wild white carnations. There were reddish-pink flowers of weeds speckled throughout the gated residence. He remembered coming here with his Gran-gran and his Grand-pops. Hell was raining down upon them and the priest had to shout through the storm. It had been an abbreviated ceremony, and everyone had been glad to get out of the rain quickly. Only the three of them had stayed for a while, soaked to the skin, staring at the cold stone embedded in the ground. Gran-pops caught a cold the next day. Gran-pops lost his balance at the top of the stairs the day after. He and Gran-gran attended his funeral in the very next week.

 

He remembered that Gran-gran had made a stop at the florist and emerged from the shop clutching just 3 white carnations with her shaking hands. They stood for innocence, she had said. Dad and Mom and Gran-pops, all of them, had nothing to do with everything that was wrong. It was just the way of this world. This violent, crazy, chaotic and unforgiving world which snatched away everything they had with relentless, scraping claws. They had placed one on Dad’s grave, for when he shielded his beloved wife from a stray bullet. The gangsters in that fight had been arrested, temporarily. But Dad was gone, forever. They had placed one on Mom’s grave, for when she had sold herself to the local drug cartel, earning enough money for Gran-gran and him to eat for the next week. The police had found her body 3 days later, lying bloodied in a ditch. They had placed the last carnation, lovingly, onto Gran-pops grave, for all the times he had been the head, the shield, and the sword for a broken family made up of an elderly couple and a toddler. For all the times he had stood up to the monsters banging and shouting their heads off at the door at 3am in the morning with incessant demands, and came back with a tooth missing, or a broken nose, but always with a smile and comforting words. And the three of them would fall asleep, huddled together on the threadbare couch, forgetting the outside world existed for just a moment; even as the sounds of their next-door neighbour berating his daughter as she screamed about her monster of a sister echoed clearly through the walls.

 

But that was then. And this is now. And now a peculiarity caught the young man’s eye. He peered through the gate grills and could barely make out the rugged engraving on the stone- ‘ **Here lies the last of Canaan’s residents/John William Moore/1867-1893** ’.

 

A small smile quirked on the young man’s face as he turned away from the site and continued onward. The eerie dilapidated houses lining the street seemed to hold historical secrets, happenings that belonged in the far past. If they could, the walls would speak of some young boy who had spilled strawberry jam on the corner of the room, tried to hide the evidence under the carpet but consequently suffered a hiding by his mother later on. They would regale tales of couples’ late night adventures, only for the lovebirds to later argue, split and drift to the opposite ends of the earth, never to meet again. They would convey the sorrows of some family or other, when the spark of life falls from the lips of a grandfather in a rickety rocking chair, eyes fluttering close and the soft beat of a weakening heart fading away. The resounding silence of peace and calm that settled on the town knew every smile, every laugh, every cry, every shout, every word, every action, every interaction event birth arrival departure and every death in the misty town of Canaan.

 

The young man trudged on steadily, the previously twilight blue overhead becoming lighter as dawn fast approached the slumbering town. The faceless windows that scrutinized his march forward could still remember each soul that vanished. Its heart still ached for every life lost. The pole lights, no longer functioning, had kept quiet guard, even as the despondent town life had trickled away, slowly but surely. Only the light of a singular lamp in the middle of the street weakly flickered in and out of existence. And when the last life leapt from the realm of the living, a great sigh escaped from the town; the soft rhythm of _its_ weakening heart fading away, and then it fell silent forevermore.

 

The first rays of a young sun had crept out from the horizon, bursting through the shadows of the previous night, glinting off the gilded roofs. The young man came to a halt at the front porch of a peculiar house. It was one of the few in town that was still left largely intact. But unlike the other dark houses enveloped in musty colours and decaying wood, the walls of this house held evidence of what was once a bright yellow painted panels with white delicately lining the windows and the door frame. The porch groaned under the weight of the young man who had advanced into the house’s territory. He stole a glance at a dirty white plaque by the side of the door, the black letters on it mostly peeled off but still barely spelled the words ‘Moore Residence’. Then he faced the door shut fast in his face.

 

There was a pregnant pause as green eyes glazed over whilst the light from the rising gold sphere spilled through the translucent windows, illuminating the interior of the house in a mysterious glow.

The very air stilled as nature held its breath. Time left for that moment.

 

And then it was gone.

 

The chill of the air returned with a breeze and the young man shrugged his shoulders, steeling himself for the next step. He reached out to the rusted metal of the doorknob, hesitating ever so slightly before grasping it fully with his hand and giving it a turn. A sonorous click echoed throughout the town, spreading the news. The door shyly creaked ajar before the young man pushed it fully open.

 

Another step forward.

 

The warm glow brought light into the musky room, revealing a singular couch encased in layers of undisturbed dust, yellow-white walls speckled with dirt marks, and a collapsed staircase that led to the second floor. The news travelled fast and the town responded, awakening once more from its sleep. The chirrup of crickets pierced the air, accompanied by the sudden song of invisible kites. A strong breeze swept through the streets, ending at the peculiar yellow house where it gently whispered its welcome.

 

A soft smile appeared on the young man’s face. It had been a very, very long time, but John William Moore had finally come home.  

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'ed help.
> 
> i live for kudos, comments, bookmarks and constructive feedback, anything you can give really
> 
> Summary:  
> John: I'm back.  
> The town: Welcome back.  
> John: Oh, I'm actually dead.  
> The town: Join the squad.  
> Readers: How shooking.


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